


Following the Sun

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano takes Maul's hand, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Arrogance, Attempted Sexual Assault, BAMF Ahsoka Tano, BAMF Darth Maul, Confrontations, Crimson Dawn AU, Force Bond (Star Wars), Fulcrum, Moral Ambiguity, Nothing Huge, Quote: The Force works in mysterious ways, Slavery, The Force, The Will of the Force (Star Wars), Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29669073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Ahsoka trades one order for another, from Jedi to right hand of the Crimson Dawn.
Relationships: Darth Maul & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	Following the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saricess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saricess/gifts).



> based on the lovely art by letoscrawls, critter-of-habit, and sylvanlore on tumblr!!
> 
> i made ahsoka a little petty but my ass is kinda petty so why am i not surprised lol, hope you all enjoy crimson dawn ahsoka she's so cool :)

There is no confirmation other than her own conviction and distant echoes of dreams from the world where her death sleeps, mirrored in the faces of those who had brought her up only to turn their back on her when she needed them most.

The force is heartbreakingly silent, almost absent, as if it’s taken a step back. Potentially ashamed, a parent watching it’s child throw away all it’s been given and needing to shut its eyes. Banish the thought. The disgrace.

It is empty, her head, her heart, her place. This she knows as tears cascade in rivets down the contours of her hollow cheeks. Lead bearing down her feet as each footfall brings her lower, down the porcelain steps that rival the path to Olympus.

The further she walks, the further she falls, it is easier to breathe. Easier to see. As if a veil had been blown off her montrals, a veil so many in this war had tried to get her to see had finally become visible.

The jedi were behind her, the emptiness in the force was too. And all too quickly as she touches down to the earth, no longer on the dias of the apparent holy men of this war, one she had once been as well, Ahsoka realizes that the disappointment, disagreement screaming in the force is not directed at her. Rather it is shrouding the very Jedi who’d cast her out, who had lost their faith in her.

It is all the confirmation she needs as she wipes her tears away with the back of her hand, no longer blind. No longer afraid, the togruta feels the pull of the force, it calling to her, an old friend with an open hand, offering sanctuary and safety.

For all the help she gives, when she follows, the teen puts away her pride, unabashed and touched as it guides her. Curved metal casings and gadgets find their ways into her calloused hands, and when four strips of steel gleam up at her, decaled with diamonds that sat not only on her forehead but the sides of her leggings, she knew what the force was putting together for her as the pieces came together minus one key ingredient.

Seven long days without the world pressing down on her shoulders, no longer hanging on but climbing atop, the former padawan to the chosen one graciously dedicated herself to the will of the force.  If it deemed she be armed, if it insisted she continue to fight the way she intrinsically knew she always would, she’d raise her sabers without remorse or hesitation.

So obediently, when the need to rise, ascend from the depths of Coruscant rattles her bones, she climbs in the same manner a phoenix soars from it’s ashes. The girl flies right into the path of a visiting Bail Organa, he takes one look at her and knows she is the part of the resistance they were sorely lacking.

He suggests a codename, and only one name calls to her, the essential switch (and Anakin’s frequency): Fulcrum. 

“There’s a dark side force user on Radaa gaining power by killing locals, can I trust you to handle it?” The senator hands her a data tablet with all the information she would need.  With fixed white facial marked brows, she ingrains the information, the force settling around her shoulders as if helping her slip on a coat. Preparing her for a journey it wanted her to take.

She doesn’t fail to notice the man wields not one, but two sabers. The red on the screen is an insult, one that begs her to rectify the situation, to sweep away the anger that had been bled. The empty casings on her hips throb, longing as much as her for completion. 

“I can,” she confirms, remembering the harsh thickets, thorns, and cries of Trandoshans in the distance when she’d told another she was capable. She hadn’t had her sabers then, and she didn’t need them now to do this.

Her shuttle is already packed, prepared in the same way as she as the transparisteel displayed the warping blues of hyperspace.

* * *

When his body falls, when the red finally drains, something in the force sways. Rocks her on her feet. Indignation, justice- _bad and good_ sit in her gut. The sun beats down on her relentlessly, she doesn’t understand, the conflict is daunting. 

The force is asking her for something she couldn’t fathom, to not fall, but to open up herself to the dark. To take it in with the same mirth she takes in the light. It wants balance in a way she hadn’t thought was possible, the temple had never encouraged them to use the dark side. Ever.

Divine intervention demands her duality, and she knows within the pieces are there. She can do this, she can do anything. Ahsoka could follow the sun straight into the dark and rise again without fail in the morning.

Sunset, sunrise.

Her sabers filter in the light, the icy white rose in the darkness of night, each beam of light setting in a beating ray of golden yellow. 

* * *

It’s been a full cycle, a month passed her liberation that an odd stem of activity gathers her attention. One that reeks of darkness but familiarity as well. A shadow. One that sits behind whatever catches the sun's rays and wallows further in the blackened corners of the night.

The force sings when she begins her pursuit. Taking down the obstacles in her path with ease, her curiosity peaked. She’d always been intrigued about every little thing, this time is no exception.

Every clue she holds close to her chest, nearly throwing her off base when a man she’d been trailing started up a holo. The force commands quiet, sternly she forces even her heart to slow, her eyes nearly popping from her head when the holo image of the man’s master appears. The world seemingly clicks into place.

The renegade Sith Lord Maul.

* * *

Maybe it is foolish of her to jump into the fray, to confront Maul on her own. Though her inhibitions are near nonexistent, she knows this meeting is supposed to happen. Even if it’s just an introduction to her death, there is something of a twine forming throughout the force. 

He doesn’t look startled at her appearance, in fact his face mirrors her own when she is intrigued. Her sabers are at the ready and even still he doesn’t move. The force barrels on top of them, dowsing them like water.

His shields lower, her’s do in turn, and in an instant as the starts of a bond form; she understands. Not only what the force wanted for her, but why it’d led her to him.  He offers his hand, he says all the right things, she asks him no questions, not needing to, and takes his hand.

* * *

The chancellor dies by their hands, and still no one knows who is responsible for saving the galaxy other than the codename Fulcrum. Anakin Skywalker doesn’t fall to the darkside and gains the rank of master.  The senate is put under review but they can’t catch them all. Ahsoka, right hand to the leader of the Crimson Dawn, thrives. She straddles the line of light and dark, does business with gusto and enjoys a life without restraint.

* * *

She’d never put much thought into the color yellow, it’d never stood out to her in the way it does now. Her old shoto blade feels a lot like a premonition of what was to come, a precursor to her new life.

Now it is a welcome color, embedded as accents against the black of her tactile suit with one full sleeve. Framing the beginnings of her montrals, and glowing everytime she went into battle. The only red in the crimson dawn belonged to Maul, and that was fine by her, one of them had to provide the light even if it wasn’t always the brightest.

She makes friends with her constituents. Not many, most fear her too much or look at her as if she were some accessory to their master. They’re proven wrong in many ways, but these men are arrogant, not always getting the memo, not even when she slices through their heads.

Qi’ra is her closest ally who is not Maul himself. Ahsoka finds her relationship with the woman teetering, her devotion to Maul is sometimes annoying because no matter what she does it finds its way back to him through her. 

It’s almost as if she forgets Ahsoka is also the one in charge. Other times when they are calm and content, the togruta feels pity for the woman’s situation with Dryden Vos, the crimson dawn’s figurehead. (He had no real power no matter what he said.)

Ahsoka like her former master didn’t tolerate slavery, in fact that was the hardest part of her work, not acting as this woman sat around under the handle of property. If Dryden wasn’t needed Ahsoka surely would have cut him to shreds already, instead she teaches the woman how to fight and hides weapons around the hideout in case she ever needs them.

It’s all she can do, Qi’ra seems to understand. There is no ill will between them, at least none that ever lasts.

* * *

Public events aren’t usual, but sometimes they are necessary. Ahsoka knows this as she slips into her gown, one that matches Maul’s own outfit. Black with golden accents, slits up the sides of her legs and ending at her hips, a solid golden band bracketing her face, and a necklace of the upsidedown sun hanging from her throat.  She doesn’t wear heels, never knowing when she has to run, she wears sandals instead that trail up her legs in bands.

Their ship is docking, right at Dryden Vos’s doorstep. Ahsoka is forced to swallow the air when she feels two familiar signatures in the air. They're hidden from casual view, hidden from most, made to come off differently than their usual breeze, but she knows _them_.

The Jedi weren’t allowed to interfere with the Crimson Dawn, it under the authority of...well her. Fulcrum. Them even being there was potential expulsion. Nevertheless Anakin and Obi-Wan were there, and she was arm in arm with the next up-incoming sith lord.

She loves them but she can’t bring it in herself to care, not when she knows this is where she’s meant to be. She cracks down on the bigger corruptions more than she is forced to adhere to them, there is still some good for her to do in this place.

Lifting her head high, gently tipped to the side, she exudes regality and an unrelenting amount of certainness that is impossible to ignore. It certainly gets the attention of her former masters, the men clad in disguises, Obi-Wan once again made to look like Rako Hardeen, Anakin someone else she doesn't have the misfortune of knowing. 

She passed them by without a glance, not even a brush of the force to acknowledge them. Later in the night she’d confront them, let them know to get lost, and she could technically have them court marshalled or killed for being there.

Maul would probably love to take off their heads in front of his subjects. Speaking of the sith lord, the togruta isn’t sure if he's noticed their presence, then again he was more calculated then he let on.  With something as big as slaying his worst enemies, he’d make it perfect, there wasn’t any way he’d kill Obi-Wan when the man didn’t even look like himself. She’d seen the inside of the madman’s mind, saw how he fantasized the death of her grandmaster.

The same stance that he’d taken in slaying Qui-Gon Jinn, bloody saber piercing his chest, dying ever so slowly in his padawan’s arms before he’d kill the padawan-Anakin-too.

Throughout the night when she strays from Maul’s side, not content to play arm candy more than she has too, and mingle; she feels their stares. Clocks their steps as they try again and again to approach, but she is an ever moving river in the sea of guests.

Qi’ra greets her warmly, Dryden kisses her hand longer than necessary, and she makes sure to show him her fangs when she smiles less than sweetly back up at him. He isn’t the only man to try to proposition her that night, the drunk, bold, or plain stupid men place a hand on her lower back when she is close, and she’s sure Anakin is seething if his glares mean anything.

In any other circumstance she would have elbow-checked the men in the ribs, but she was on her best behavior tonight. She had one confrontation to deal with and it would take all the strength she had.

Plus Anakin ended up  _ accidentally _ spilling his drink on all the men who had the misfortune of being in her presence. It was one of the reasons she wasn’t worried, Maul and Anakin would likely kill anyone who dared to try anything more-or she gladly would.

Branching back off into the hall, knowing she was being followed, the girl leaned against the wall- ignoring the man smoking death sticks waiting just outside the restroom who certainly noticed her.  He reeked of alcohol, made his approach and by the time she flipped him and sent him to the floor unconscious. Obi-Wan and Anakin were approaching, eyeing the figure and her cautiously.

“Ahsoka?” So they knew she was aware of their presence. Maybe she wasn’t shielding as well as she thought. Maybe they’d caught on she had lead them to a secluded space for this talk alone. Or possibly Anakin had simply been hoping she’d know it was him the second he spoke.

“You boys know you could get in trouble just being here?” she ponders if she should check the body on the ground for any spare deathsticks, she doesn’t smoke but she is desperate now for something to ease her anxiety.

“I don’t think you understand the danger of your being here Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan starts tentatively, as if talking to a child.

“I’m undercover,” it wasn’t exactly a lie but it wasn’t the truth either, “For Fulcrum.”

“You know Fulcrum?” Anakin asks incredulously at the same time Obi-Wan speaks.

“If Maul figures out who you are it will not end well,”  His concern leaves a putrid taste in her mouth, he hadn’t stuck up for her and yet he berates her like an exasperated parent, warning her as if she wasn’t aware of her situation. 

“He knows exactly who I am,” she admits, the toe of her shoe gently tapping the prone body on the ground, the pros and cons of checking for a stick more and more grating.

“What?” They ask in unison, incredulously. 

She is tired and scorn, face pinched for a moment before she is open and slack, brutally honest, “Sidious killed his brother and the rest of the nightsisters. He didn’t have anyone he trusted left, and then...well I reminded him of himself...and who would he trust more than himself?”

Obi-Wan gawks, unable to even form words, the comparison ghastly. Anakin is even more furious, fist clenching at his sides, seconds away from punching a hole through the wall. His voice is wrecked and gruelling when it comes out:

“You are not like him,”

“Ex-apprentices to the most powerful beings in the galaxy,” she sighs, then reiterated without any emotion in her tone at all, “Tools for a higher power,” her brow wrinkles as another similarity comes to mind, “Back from the dead.”

They shudder at those words, and a figure appears from around the corner. Qi’ra.

“Lady Tano?” She asks confused, concerned, taking in the situation with bright eyes. Ahsoka pulls herself straight, heading towards her friend and taking the woman’s offered arm.

“I’ll send for someone to clean this up,” Qi’ra assures, not sparing a second glance at the unconscious body, but staring down the two men standing as if they were threats.

Ahsoka doesn’t tell them goodbye, but she does give them another shock before they go. Looking to Qi’ra the togruta requests an alcoholic beverage that has their parental/protective instincts going haywire.

“Get me a Junipera too,"

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


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